You guys wasted no time with this one.
First, dependable Erik of Light Bulb Head fame weighed in with the following:
I'm guessing 248 W. 14th Street.
I was able to find a mention of a Blarney Rose on 14th near 8th amidst some rambling entry of long forgotten watering holes. That led me to google Blarney Rose 14th street and uncover this gem!
Yes, they failed a food inspection.
As far as the photograph, I suppose I could google it with the information I've gleaned but I want to see if someone knows it without that help.
Then, of course, Bob Egan of PopSpots arrived with verification:
I’ve attached a copy of the KISS photo that I found on Bob Gruen’s website. So that’s the “photographer” answer.
I’m in agreement with ERIK on 248 West 14th Street as where the photo is taken, mostly from a photo of the Blarney Rose entrance I found on the library digital files., attached, and later in a “clues’ photo I put together..
I happened to walk the Highline with some friend today and I ended up catching the train back uptown at at - you guessed it - 248 West 14th Street, so I took some pix, as it’s hard to see the front of 248 West 14th on Google because of the trees.
The key matchup is that , on the building to the left and behind Kiss, the second floor window panes are made of a line of small frames over large ones, as you can see in the photo of the Subway store that shares the building with The Darby nightclub.
Now I have to go rock and roll all night because I’ll be partying all day tomorrow.
Living the KISS life,
Bob
So, there you have it, quizlers! It is indeed a Bob Gruen photograph, snapped in front of 248 West 14th Street (see Bob's pics below... click on them to enlarge).
As a marginally historic side note, right adjacent to the former Blarney Rose (the next address to the west) once stood a popular club called Nell's at 246 West 14th. Nell's held court on that little strip of W.14th from the late 80's into the mid-2000's, and prided itself on being wicked exclusive in the worst way.
However unlikely as it may sound, I did manage to get into Nell's during the height of its popularity in 1989, although the caveat was that it was because of an office party. I was interning at SPIN at the time, and they threw a big shindig there. The musical guest of the evening was a little-known hip-hop act called A Tribe Called Quest who inexplicably wore monk-like robes and performed the same song about three times (that song being "I Left My Wallet in El Segundo"). From what I can recall, it was quite an evening.
I never made it back to Nell's after that. The videos for the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Big Poppa" and U2's "One" were later filmed in Nell's interior, after my inauspicious visit. You can actually catch glimpses of West 14th street in the beginning of the former and the ending of the latter. After Nell's , the space became Plumm, co-owned by Chris Noth, a.k.a "Mr. Big" from "Sex and The City." Now, evidently, it's a place called Darcy.
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